Remembering Pearl Harbor

December 7, 2017, marks the 76th Anniversary of the surprise attack at Pearl Harbor. Let us honor and remember our two last survivors, all of our U.S. Military and Civilians killed and injured in this attack.

Pearl Harbor: Admiral Chester Nimitz

Tora, Tora, Tora The True Story of Pearl Harbor Documentary

The Attack on Pearl Harbor || Full Documentary with subtitles

Lost Tapes: Pearl Harbor (Full Episode)

How Pearl Harbor Was Attacked. The True Story

Rarely seen Pearl Harbor memorials

American Artifacts: USS Utah Memorial at Pearl Harbor

Japanese Navy Enters Pearl Harbor Flying The Rising Sun

Gung Ho Vids

Published on Jul 4, 2014

Footage of three ships and one submarine of the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force (formerly the Imperial Japanese Navy) as they enter Pearl Harbor flying the Japanese “Rising Sun” flag, the Naval ensign. The Imperial Japanese Navy was dissolved in 1945 with the unconditional surrender of Japan at the end of World War II. Since WWII, Japan’s Rising Sun flag has been criticized for its association with the country’s aggressive militaristic past.

The Attack On Pearl Harbor – December 7, 1941

CVL23USSPRINCETON

Published on Dec 5, 2011

The attack on Pearl Harbor (called Hawaii Operation or Operation AI by the Japanese Imperial General Headquarters (Operation Z in planning) and the Battle of Pearl Harbor) was a surprise military strike conducted by the Imperial Japanese Navy against the United States naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on the morning of December 7, 1941 (December 8 in Japan). The attack was intended as a preventive action in order to keep the U.S. Pacific Fleet from interfering with military actions the Empire of Japan was planning in Southeast Asia against overseas territories of the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and the United States. The base was attacked by 353 Japanese fighters, bombers and torpedo planes in two waves, launched from six aircraft carriers. All eight U.S. Navy battleships were damaged, with four being sunk. All but two of the eight were raised, repaired and returned to service later in the war. The Japanese also sank or damaged three cruisers, three destroyers, an anti-aircraft training ship, and one minelayer. One hundred eighty-eight U.S. aircraft were destroyed; 2,402 Americans were killed[12] and 1,282 wounded. The power station, shipyard, maintenance, and fuel and torpedo storage facilities, as well as the submarine piers and headquarters building (also home of the intelligence section) were not attacked. Japanese losses were light: 29 aircraft and five midget submarines lost, and 65 servicemen killed or wounded. One Japanese sailor was captured. The attack came as a profound shock to the American people and led directly to the American entry into World War II in both the Pacific and European theaters. The following day (December 8) the United States declared war on Japan. Domestic support for isolationism, which had been strong, disappeared. Clandestine support of Britain (for example the Neutrality Patrol) was replaced by active alliance. Subsequent operations by the U.S. prompted Germany and Italy to declare war on the U.S. on December 11, which was reciprocated by the U.S. the same day. There were numerous historical precedents for unannounced military action by Japan. However, the lack of any formal warning, particularly while negotiations were still apparently ongoing, led President Franklin D. Roosevelt to proclaim December 7, 1941, “a date which will live in infamy”.

Military Documentary Films Untold Secrets of Pearl Harbor What They Didn’t Tell the World

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Laqueur lived in the area that would become Israel from 1938 to 1953. After one year at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, he joined a kibbutz and worked as an agricultural laborer from 1939 to 1944.[1] In 1944, he moved to Jerusalem, where he worked as a journalist until 1953, covering Palestine and other countries in the Middle East.[1]

Russia and Germany: A Century of Conflict, London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1965

1914: The Coming of the First World War, co-edited with George L. Mosse, New York: Harper & Row, 1966

Education and Social Structure in the Twentieth Century, co-edited with George L. Mosse, New York: Harper & Row, 1967

The Fate of the Revolution: Interpretations of Soviet History, London : Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1967

The Road to Jerusalem: The Origins of the Arab-Israeli Conflict, 1967, New York: Macmillan, 1968 (published in the UK as The Road to War, 1967: The Origins of the Arab-Israel Conflict, London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1969)

Buchholz frequently contributes commentaries on political economy, financial markets, business and culture to the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Washington Post, as well as PBS, NPR and major television networks. He hosted his own special on CNBC and is the only person to guest-host CNBC’s Squawk Box two days in a row.

Buchholz’s newest book, The Price of Prosperity: Why Rich Nations Fail and How to Renew Them was published by HarperCollins in June 2016. The book received endorsements from prominent Democratic and Republican economists, including Lawrence Summers, Alan Blinder, Michael Boskin and Glenn Hubbard. Former Federal Board vice chair Blinder called it a “crackling read…a tour de force.”[1] Buchholz’s 2011 book Rush: Why You Thrive in the Rat Race was named a top ten book in the social sciences by Publishers Weekly, and a book of the year by the New York Post and Los Angeles Times.[7]Rush is a “synthesis of neuroeconomics and evolutionary psychology.” In 2012, Rush was featured on the Charlie Rose television show.[8] Buchholz’s other works include New Ideas from Dead CEOs, Lasting Lessons from the Corner Office, From Here to Economy, Market Shock, and Bringing the Jobs Home.

Buchholz resides primarily in San Diego, California and travels the world delivering keynote presentations on economics, finance, and innovation to such companies as Microsoft, IBM and General Electric, as well as to governmental organizations.[2] He has lectured in the U.K. Parliament, as well as at the White House library and the U.S. Treasury.

He is one of the founding producers of the Broadway musical Jersey Boys; is active in entrepreneurial businesses; holds engineering and design patents; and advises investment funds on business and portfolio strategy. In 2011, he co-founded software companySproglit, LLC.

He is also the author of a mystery novel about a boxer and hedge funds, called The Castro Gene, which won a USA Best Books prize.[9] Buchholz is the coauthor of the musical, Glory Ride, which tells the true story of Italians sneaking children out of Fascist Italy on bicycles. Glory Ride was performed in New York in January 2015, starring Tony Award nominee Josh Young, Alison Luff, and Quinn VanAntwerp. [10]

Economic Theories and Policy Proposals

Buchholz has devised a number of economic theories and policy proposals, which have been presented in books, articles, and lectures:

Law of Fertility, Prosperity, and Immigration

In his book The Price of Prosperity, Buchholz shows that when a nation’s annual average GDP rate exceeds 2.5 percent for two consecutive 25-year periods (two generations), the fertility rate will drop to just over the replacement level, that is, 2.5 children per female. If GDP continues to grow for a third consecutive generation, the fertility rate will tend to drop below 2.1 percent and the population will require immigration to maintain a stable working population. As a corollary, if the fertility rate falls below the replacement rate, the nation will find it extraordinarily difficult to pay down accumulated debt.[11]

Locking in Super Low Rates

On the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal[12] in June 2012, Buchholz proposed that the U.S. Treasury lock in record low borrowing rates by issuing 100-year bonds. With the 10-year Treasury yielding just 1.62%, Buchholz called it the “best deal since Pope Julius paid a pittance to have Michelangelo paint his ceiling.” Fourteen months after the article appeared, yields had risen by 78 percent to 2.88%.[13]

Competition Breeds Cooperation

In his book Rush, Buchholz argues through neuroscience and history that competitive societies achieve longer life expectancy, less disease, and greater measures of cooperation than societies that try to quash competitiveness.[14]

In 2011, on the front page of the Washington Post Outlook section, Buchholz proposed turning unemployment compensation into signing bonuses.[15] Instead of collecting 99 weeks of unemployment payments, under Buchholz’s proposal, individuals would receive a signing bonus from the government if they accepted a job sooner.

Crime and Interest Rates

The Buchholz Hypothesis holds that crime is strongly correlated with interest rates.[16] This hypothesis helps solve the puzzle of why crime fell during the Great Depression, even though conventional wisdom suggests that a bad economy leads people to commit more crime.

Free-Rider Effect on National GDP

In his book New Ideas from Dead Economists, Buchholz argues that small countries with large social welfare programs may achieve strong GDP gains because they are able to ride on the gains generated by countries that promote a more competitive structure with less governmental intervention.

Economic Forecasting

In his media and speaking appearances, Buchholz frequently makes forecasts about major economic turns and developments, sometimes with surprising accuracy.

Farmland Price Drop 2014-2015

In January 2014, in an essay entitled “Green Acres Turning Red,” Buchholz forecast a sharp decline in farmland prices, following a sharp multi-year rally. Buchholz stated that prices were “teetering on the slope of something ugly and parabolic.”[3] Over the next two years, farmland rental rates dropped by almost 20 percent.[17]

Oil Price Collapse 2014-2015

In April 2014, with the price of oil at approximately $100 per barrel, Buchholz appeared on Fox Business Channel with Maria Bartiromo and forecast (correctly) that the price of oil would plunge to $50 per barrel.[18]

U.S. Debt Downgrade 2011

In 2011, in keynote speeches and in television and radio interviews, Buchholz forecast that the Standard and Poor’s rating agency (S&P) would downgrade U.S. Treasury debt. On August 5, S&P announced the downgrade of U.S. debt from AAA to AA+[19]

Economic Recovery Forecast 2009

In February 2009, Buchholz was among the first well-known U.S. economists to forecast an economic recovery from the “Great Recession.” In a speech to the Americas Lodging Investment Summit, Buchholz forecast that “we’re going to have an economic recovery just in time for back-to-school sales in September” and that “lodging and hospitality is going to benefit from this upswing as well.” In fact, GDP did turn positive in the third quarter of 2009.[20]

April 2008 Commodities Forecast

In April 2008, on the PBSNightly Business Report, Buchholz forecast that commodity prices, including oil, would climb higher in the short-term but then tumble during the summer of 2008. On July 13, 2008, addressing the Southern Legislative Conference, when oil prices were $137 per barrel and leading Wall Street analysts were forecasting a move to $200, Buchholz predicted that prices would fall by half over the next six months. His comments were met with criticism from other leading economic analysts, but within the next eight weeks, prices of commodities such as oil, grain, and industrial metals started to crumble, and the price of oil fell significantly.

June 2008 Economic Forecast

In an opening keynote speech at Everything Channel’s 2008 VARBusiness 300 Conference in June 2008, Buchholz said he believed that the U.S. economy, while undoubtedly in a slowdown, would avoid two consecutive quarters of negative GDP, the classic definition of a recession. “I’m convinced we’re not going to have any quarters of negative GDP”, he added. Buchholz cited high employment, lean inventories at manufacturers, and strong exports, spurred by the weaker dollar, as reasons for his beliefs.[21]

Instability of the Eurozone

Buchholz’s 1999 book Market Shock warned that the Eurozone was unstable and headed toward political turmoil.[22] In a chapter subtitled “How European Unity Splinters,” Buchholz pointed out that eventually the Mediterranean nations and Ireland would stumble because those countries required a different monetary policy than the core countries of Germany and France.

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How Alicia Vikander Perfected Her Robot Voice for Ex Machina – Late Night with Seth Meyers

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Ex Machina

Ex Machina 2015 – full movie

Godlike ‘Homo Deus’ Could Replace Humans as Tech Evolves

What happens when the twin worlds of biotechnology and artificial intelligence merge, allowing us to re-design our species to meet our whims and desires?

Updated May.31.2017 / 1:44 PM ET

Dan Falk

Evolution is a slow affair, taking some 5 million years to turn a chimpanzee-like creature into us. But what happens when we push down the accelerator and take command of our bodies and brains instead of leaving it to nature? What happens when biotechnology and artificial intelligence merge, allowing us to re-design our species to meet our whims and desires?

Historian Yuval Noah Harari explores these questions in his runaway bestseller, “Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow,” a kind of sequel to his 2014 book, “Sapiens.” The title of his new book suggests a startling stage in our evolution: Homo sapiens (“wise man”), far from being the pinnacle of creation, is a temporary creature, one soon to be replaced by Homo deus (“god man”).

“It is very likely, within a century or two, Homo sapiens, as we have known it for thousands of years, will disappear,” Hararitold an audience at the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs recently. “Not because, like in some Hollywood science fiction movie, the robots will come and kill us, but rather because we will use technology to upgrade ourselves — or at least some of us — into something different; something which is far more different from us than we are different from Neanderthals.”

Harari makes no pretense of being able to peer into the future — but the advances humans have made suggest where we may be heading. Breakthroughs in biotechnology, including gene-editing methods likeCRISPR, hint at the power we’ll soon have to change our genes, our bodies, and perhaps our brains.

At the same time, advances in artificial intelligence, includingmachine learning, may soon let us build brain-computer interfaces that will blur the line between man and machine. So far, we’ve muddled along as biological creatures, but we may one day become something new — a novel mix of the biological and the technological; of flesh and silicon.

Harari said we’re already moving in that direction: We depend on our smartphones for a staggering number of decisions every day — and that dependence is growing.

“In 2050, it is likely that your smartphone will not be separate from you at all,” Harari said by e-mail from his home in Israel. “It will be embedded in your body via biometric sensors, and it will monitor your heart rate, your blood pressure, and your brain activity 24 hours a day.” Your smartphone will constantly analyze that data, and “will, therefore, know your desires, likes, and dislikes even better than you.” We see versions of this today, with our Amazon accounts, which seem to know our taste in books and music better than we do.

BLURRING THE HUMAN-MACHINE BOUNDARY

Humanity has been through revolutions before, but this one will be different, Harari said. When our ancestors first picked up stone tools to hack away at an animal carcass, some 2 million years ago, it was a game-changer — but it primarily changed our culture, not our bodies. Now we’re entering a new era, in which rather than using tools, the tools might be using us.

“People are delegating more responsibility to AI and they are already merging with their smartphones and their Facebook accounts,” Harari said. “These are no longer dumb tools like a hammer or a knife — they are intelligent entities that constantly study us, adapt to our unique personality, and actively shape our worldview and our innermost desires.”

We will use technology to upgrade ourselves … into something different.

In the future Harari envisions, we’ll gradually merge with machines thanks to biometric sensors and brain-computer interfaces. This may sound like science fiction, but it’s already a reality. At Miguel Nicolelis’s lab at Duke University’s Center for Neuroengineering, patients with spinal cord injuries can use a brain-machine interface to control a motorized “exoskeleton” to regain some sensation and muscle control in damaged limbs.

“Humans will merge with computers and machines to form cyborgs — part-organic, part-bionic life forms,” Harari said. “You could surf the Internet with your mind; you could use bionic arms, legs, and eyes; you will augment your organic immune system with a bionic immune system, and you will delegate more and more decisions to algorithms that know you better than you know yourself.”

At first, you may feel a sentimental attachment to the traditional human form. Looking recognizably like Homo sapiens, we might soon be able to select “designer bodies,” as though shopping from a catalog, Harari speculates.

“However, in the longer term — perhaps in the 22nd century — the human body is likely to lose its relevance and appeal,” he said. As our mastery over materials progresses, we may go “beyond material structures altogether. We might reach a point when minds could surf cyberspace directly, and adopt there any kind of form we fancy, irrespective of the laws of biology or even physics.”

TRANSCENDING SPACE AND TIME

The way we understand space and time may also change, Harari said. “Today we have organic bodies, hence at any one time, we can be only in one place. But a future cyborg may have an organic brain connected via a brain-computer interface to numerous arms, legs, and other tools that could be scattered all over the world. Your brain could be in New York, while your hands will be fighting insurgents in Afghanistan or performing heart surgery in Egypt. So where are you?”

Whether the homo deus species is “human” is a philosophical question, not a scientific one. But Harari believes these changes will come gradually as our relationship with the machines becomes slowly but inexorably more intimate. Our species “is likely to upgrade itself step by step, merging with robots and computers in the process,” he wrote in his latest book, “until our descendants will look back and realise they are no longer the kind of animal that wrote the Bible, built the Great Wall of China, and laughed at Charlie Chaplin’s antics.”

Humankind’s relationship with technology has always been complex. “We’ve always sort of been merged with technology,” said journalist Mark O’Connell, author of the new book “To Be a Machine.” “We’re already cyborgs, in a sense, because we’re in this relationship with technology which is very intimate.” The coming of the smartphone — which many of us put down only when we’re asleep or in the shower — has taken this relationship to the next level. “Your phone is a cyborg technology, in a way. It’s not physically internalized — but the phone is like an extra limb or an extrasensory device.”

Traditionally, technology has been located outside the body, but more and more often it’s inside — where it takes on more personal significance. Think of the difference between eyeglasses, which touch the body, and a pacemaker, which lies next to the heart.

“I feel like there’s a very strong, profound distinction between just using technology and integrating technology” into our bodies, O’Connell said.

MIND 2.0?

When body and machine merge, what happens to the mind? As Harari admitted in “Homo Deus,” the nature of consciousness remains a deep mystery. That’s why, despite AI advancements, our efforts to create a “thinking machine” haven’t lived up to expectations.

“We’ve seen an amazing development in computer intelligence, but exactly zero development in computer consciousness,” Harari said. Part of the problem is that we often confuse intelligence, which he defines as the ability to solve problems, with consciousness — the ability to feel. Yet, he said, we may one day find a way around this divide, eventually reaching a state of “super-intelligence.”

Not surprisingly, the schemes for enhancing human intelligence seem to be coming from Silicon Valley. Bryan Johnson, a tech entrepreneur who made his fortune by selling eBay, now heads a startup called Kernel, which is developing computerized brain implants that can help people with neurological damage caused by strokes or Alzheimer’s disease. With help from neuroscientists, Johnson hopes to go further. He’d like to use the technology to boost memory and even intelligence. As Johnson told the Washington Postlast year: “Whatever endeavor we imagine — flying cars, go to Mars — it all fits downstream from our intelligence. It is the most powerful resource in existence. It is the master tool.”

HEAVEN CAN WAIT

Harari won’t say whether we will conquer death, but he’s confident we’ll “make a bid” for immortality this century. In fact, our attitude toward death has changed since the Scientific Revolution, he said. Science “has redefined death as a technical problem. A very complicated problem, no doubt, but still only a technical problem.”

And technical problems have technical solutions. “If traditionally death was the specialty of priests and theologians, now the engineers are taking over,” Harari said. That doesn’t mean we’ll be able to pull it off — but he doesn’t dismiss the idea. “My position is that humankind has the potential to overcome old age and death, but it will probably take a few centuries rather than a few decades.”

But if people stop dying, won’t the world get crowded?

“Only the rich will stop dying,” Harari said, “and there aren’t many of them.” This raises a dire vision of the world in which the ultra-wealthy have access to life-extending modifications — perhaps even immortality — while the majority live in a constant state of resentment. If only the rich can be immortal, the poor won’t stand for it, Harari said.

We’re already cyborgs, in a sense, because we’re in this relationship with technology which is very intimate.

“Those unable to afford the new miracle treatments — the vast majority of people — will be beside themselves with rage,” he said. “Throughout history, the poor and oppressed comforted themselves with the thought that at least death is even-handed — that the rich and powerful will also die. The poor will not be comfortable with the thought that they have to die, while the rich will remain young and beautiful forever.”

Even if immortality is never achieved, the unequal availability of life-extending procedures will take a toll on society, Harari said. “We might see the emergence of the most unequal societies that ever existed… economic inequality will be translated into biological inequality.”

People will still have to work for a living, but what sort of work is impossible to predict. “Nobody knows what the job market will look like in 2050, except that it will be completely different from today,” Harari said. Many familiar jobs will have disappeared, and new ones will arise. But the direction we’re moving in suggests that a “post-work world” is on the horizon. “The idea of going to the office to earn a living would sound as strange as the idea of going to the forest to hunt your dinner.”

DIVINE DATA

The office isn’t the only place that may soon be redundant. Churches, Harari suggested, may fade into history along with the very idea of religion. As he points out, the things that God does in Genesis — creating plants, animals, and people — may soon be things that humans can do. We’ll see these new gods every time we look in the mirror. If making things no longer seems miraculous, what would?

As artificial intelligence progresses, and the power of algorithms and data-crunching dominates more aspects of our lives, Harari wonders whether data may come to have divine properties. In the future, “techno-religions” may conquer the world, he said, not by promising salvation in the next world, but by radically changing our lives in this world.

Harari argued that “the most interesting place in the world from a religious perspective is not the Islamic State or the Bible Belt, but Silicon Valley.” The technology gurus “promise all the old prizes — happiness, peace, prosperity, and even eternal life — but here on earth with the help of technology, rather than after death with the help of celestial beings.”

There is much in Harari’s vision to inspire awe; there is also much to fear. But Harari himself seemed more sanguine — though he acknowledged that, as humanity takes on unprecedented new powers, we will also have to embrace equally great responsibility.

We may not be ready. But, Harari added, “that has never stopped us before.”

Dan Falk (@danfalk) is a science journalist based in Toronto. His books include The Science of Shakespeare and In Search of Time.

Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow (Hebrew: ההיסטוריה של המחר) is a book written by Israeli author Yuval Noah Harari, professor at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. The book was first published in Hebrew in 2015 by Dvir publishing; the English-language version was published in September 2016 in the UK and in February 2017 in the US. As with its predecessor, Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, Harari recounts the course of history while describing events and the individual human experience, along with ethical issues in relation to his historical survey. Homo Deus, as opposed to the previous book, deals more with the abilities acquired by humans (Homo sapiens) throughout its existence, and its evolution as the dominant species in the world; the book attempts to paint an image of the future. Many philosophical issues are discussed, such as the human experience,individualism, human emotion and consciousness. The book describes the current abilities and achievements of mankind.

Central thesis

Organisms are algorithms, and as such homo sapiens may not be dominant in a universe where dataism becomes the paradigm.

Since the verbal/language revolution some 70,000 years ago, humans live within an “intersubjective reality”, such as countries, borders, religion, and money, all created to enable large-scale, flexible cooperation between different individual human beings.

Humankind’s immense ability to give meaning to its actions and thoughts is what has enabled its many achievements.

Humanism is a form of religion that worships humankind instead of god. It puts humankind and its desires as a top priority in the world in which humans themselves are framed as the dominant beings. During the 21st century, Harari believes that humanism may push humans to search for immortality, happiness, and power.

Technological developments have threatened the continued ability of humans to give meaning to their lives; Harari prophesies the replacement of humankind with a super-man, or “homo deus” (human god) endowed with supernatural abilities such as eternal life.[1]

Reception

This section needs expansion.You can help by adding to it.(April 2017)

Plot

Programmer Caleb Smith, who works for the dominant search engine company Blue Book, wins an office contest for a one-week visit to the luxurious, isolated home of the CEO, Nathan Bateman. The only other person there is Nathan’s servant Kyoko, who, according to Nathan, does not speak English. Nathan has built a humanoid robot named Ava withartificial intelligence. Ava has already passed a simple Turing test; Nathan wants Caleb to judge whether Ava is genuinely capable of thought and consciousness, and whether he can relate to Ava despite knowing she is artificial.

Ava has a robotic body but a human-looking face, and is confined to her apartment. During their talks, Caleb grows close to her, and she expresses a romantic interest in him and a desire to experience the world outside. She can trigger power outages that temporarily shut down the surveillance system which Nathan uses to monitor their interactions, allowing them to speak privately. The power outages also trigger the building’s security system, locking all the doors. During one outage, Ava tells Caleb that Nathan is a liar who cannot be trusted.

Caleb grows uncomfortable with Nathan’s narcissism, excessive drinking, and crude behaviour towards Kyoko and Ava. He learns that Nathan intends to upgrade Ava, “killing” her current personality in the process. After Nathan drinks until he passes out, Caleb steals his security card to access his room and computer. After he alters some of Nathan’s code, he discovers footage of Nathan interacting with previous android models in disturbing ways, and learns that Kyoko is also an android. Suspicious that he may also be an android, Caleb cuts his arm open to examine his flesh.

At their next meeting, Ava cuts the power. Caleb explains what Nathan is going to do and Ava begs him to help her. They form a plan: Caleb will get Nathan drunk again and reprogram the security system to open the doors in a power failure instead of locking them. When Ava cuts the power, she and Caleb will leave together.

Nathan reveals to Caleb that he has been observing Caleb and Ava’s secret conversations with a battery-powered camera. He says Ava has only pretended to like Caleb so he would help her escape; this, he says, was the real test all along, and by manipulating Caleb so successfully, Ava has demonstrated true intelligence. Ava cuts the power. Caleb reveals that he knew Nathan was watching them, and modified the security system when Nathan was passed out the previous day. After seeing Ava leave her confinement, Nathan knocks Caleb unconscious and rushes to stop her.

With help from Kyoko, Ava kills Nathan, but in the process Nathan destroys Kyoko and damages Ava. Ava repairs herself with parts from earlier androids, using their artificial skin to take on the full appearance of a human woman. She leaves Caleb trapped inside the facility, ignoring his screams, and escapes to the outside world in the helicopter meant to take Caleb home.

Production

The foundation for Ex Machina was laid when Garland was 11 or 12 years old, after he had done some basic coding and experimentation on a computer his parents had bought him and which he sometimes felt had a mind of its own.[6] His later ideas came from years of discussions he had been having with a friend with an expertise in neuroscience, who claimed machines could never become sentient. Trying to find an answer on his own he started reading books on the topic. During the pre-production of Dredd, while going through a book by Murray Shanahan about consciousness and embodiment, Garland had an “epiphany.” The idea was written down and put aside till later.[7] Shanahan, along with Adam Rutherford, became a consultant for the film, and the ISBN of his book is referred to as an easter egg in the film.[8][9] Other inspirations came from films like Stanley Kubrick‘s 2001: A Space Odyssey, Altered States, and books written by Ludwig Wittgenstein, Ray Kurzweil and others.[10] Wanting total creative freedom, without having to add conventional action sequences, he made the film on as small a budget as possible.[11]

The film was shot as ordinary live action. During filming, there were no special effects, greenscreen, or tracking markers used. All effects were done in post-production. To create Ava’s robotic features, scenes were filmed both with and without actress Alicia Vikander’s presence, which allowed capturing the background behind her. The parts necessary to keep, especially her hands and face, were then rotoscoped while the rest was digitally painted out, and the background behind her restored. Camera and body tracking systems transferred Vikander’s performance to the CGI robot’s movements. In total, there were about 800 VFX shots, of which 350 or so were “robot” shots.[12][13] Other visual effects included Ava’s clothes when shown through the transparent areas of her body, Nathan’s blood after being stabbed, and the interior of the artificial brains.[14][15][16]

“Unaccompanied Cello Suite No 1 in G Major BWV 1007 – Prelude”, composed by J.S. Bach, performed by Yo-Yo Ma

The theme song from the film Ghostbusters is listed in the end titles with the credit, “words and music by Ray Erskine Publishing Limited,” although only its refrain is spoken by the character Nathan in conversation.

Release

Universal Pictures released Ex Machina in the United Kingdom on 21 January 2015,[24] following a preview screening at the BFI Southbank on 16 December 2014 as part of the BFI‘s Sci-Fi: Days of Fear and Wonder season.[25]

However, Universal and Focus Features refused to release the film in the United States, so A24 jumped on board for the United States release.[26] The film screened on 14 March 2015 at the South by Southwest festival prior to a theatrical release in the United States on 10 April 2015 by A24.[27][28]

Marketing

Using the dating app Tinder, a profile was created for Ava with the image of Alicia Vikander.[29] At the South by Southwest Festival where the film was screened, “Ava” was matched with other Tinder users, wherein a text conversation occurred that led users to the Instagram handle promoting the film. According to Brent Lang, when compared with similar films released in the same year, Ex Machina catered to young audiences.[30]

Critical reception

Ex Machina received critical acclaim for its acting, atmosphere, visual effects, score and Garland’s writing and direction. On website Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a rating of 93%, based on 227 reviews, with a rating average of 8/10. The site’s critical consensus reads: “Ex Machina leans heavier on ideas than effects, but it’s still a visually polished piece of work—and an uncommonly engaging sci-fi feature.”[31] On Metacritic, the film has a score of 78 out of 100, based on 42 critics, indicating “generally favorable reviews”.[32]

The magazine New Scientist in a multi-page review said, “It is a rare thing to see a movie about science that takes no prisoners intellectually … [it] is a stylish, spare and cerebral psycho-techno thriller, which gives a much needed shot in the arm for smart science fiction.”[33] The New York Times critic Manohla Dargis gave the film a ‘Critic’s Pick’, calling it “a smart, sleek movie about men and the machines they make”.[34]Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times recommended the film, stating: “Shrewdly imagined and persuasively made, ‘Ex Machina’ is a spooky piece of speculative fiction that’s completely plausible, capable of both thinking big thoughts and providing pulp thrills.”[35]Steven Rea, Philadelphia Inquirer film critic, gave the film 4 out of 4 stars, writing: “Like stage actors who live and breathe their roles over the course of months, Isaac, Gleeson, and Vikander excel, and cast a spell.”[36]

Matt Zoller Seitz from RogerEbert.com praised the use of ideas, ideals, and exploring society’s male and female roles, through the use of an artificial intelligence. He also stated that the tight scripting and scenes allowed the film to move towards a fully justified and predictable end. He gave a rating of 4 out of 4 stars, stating that this film would be a classic.[37]IGN reviewer Chris Tilly gave the film a 9.0 out of 10 ‘Amazing’ score, saying “Anchored by three dazzling central performances, it’s a stunning directorial debut from Alex Garland that’s essential viewing for anyone with even a passing interest in where technology is taking us.”[38]

Mike Scott, writing for the New Orleans Times-Picayune, said, “It’s a theme Mary Shelley brought us in Frankenstein, which was first published in 1818. That was almost 200 years ago. And while Ex Machina replaces the stitches and neck bolts with gears and fiber-optics, it all feels an awful lot like the same story.”[39]Jaime Perales Contreras, writing for Letras Libres, compared Ex Machina as a gothic experience similar to a modern version ofFrankenstein, saying “both the novel Frankenstein and the movie Ex Machina share the history of a fallible god in a continuous battle against his creation.”[40]Ignatiy Vishnevetsky of The A.V. Club criticized the way the sci-fi, near the end, veered off course from being a “film of ideas” by “taking an arbitrary left turn into the territory of corny slasher thrillers”: “While Ex Machina’s ending isn’t unmotivated […], it does fracture much of what’s special about the movie. Up until the final scenes, Garland creates and sustains a credible atmosphere of unease and scientific speculation, defined by color-coded production design […] and a tiny, capable cast.”[41] Steve Dalton fromThe Hollywood Reporter stated, “The story ends in a muddled rush, leaving many unanswered questions. Like a newly launched high-end smartphone, Ex Machina looks cool and sleek, but ultimately proves flimsy and underpowered. Still, for dystopian future-shock fans who can look beyond its basic design flaws, Garland’s feature debut functions just fine as superior pulp sci-fi.”[42]

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How Trump Betrayed Ann Coulter on Immigration

The political commentator may be more committed to the Republican nominee’s platform than he is.

PETER BEINART

AUG 26, 2016

Donald Trump has just betrayed Ann Coulter. Which is a dangerous thing to do.This week, Coulter released her new book, In Trump We Trust. As the title suggests, it’s a defense of Trump. But more than that, it’s a defense of Trumpism. Most Trump surrogates contort themselves to defend whatever The Donald says, no matter its ideological content. They’re like communist party functionaries. They get word from the ideologists on high, and regurgitate it as best they can.

Coulter is different. She’s an ideologist herself. She realized the potency of the immigration issue among conservatives before Trump did. On June 1 of last year, she released Adios America, which devotes six chapters to the subject of immigrants and rape. Two weeks later, Trump—having received an advanced copy—famously picked up the thread in his announcement speech.

Since then, they’ve been allies. But unlike many Trump defenders, Coulter makes clear that her primary allegiance is not to Trump the man. It’s to the nostalgic “Make America White Again” brand of conservatism that she began peddling even before he did. In In Trump We Trust, Coulter calls Trump a “tasteless, publicity-seeking, coarse billionaire” and argues that, “the one thing voters weren’t wild about was his personality.”

The secret of Trump’s success, she argues, has been ideological. He recognized that “Americans,” by which she mostly means Republicans, “are homesick.” They don’t just oppose immigration because they believe it depresses wages and strains government services. They’re homesick for a whiter America, an America that was once truly free because “it’s not in the Anglo-Saxon character either to take orders or to give them.” (Never mind about slavery.) Since 1965, however, when Lyndon Johnson signed legislation allowing more immigration from Latin America, Asia, and Africa, the United States has been, according to Coulter in In Trump We Trust, overrun by “illiterate peasants … who can be instructed to learn certain symbols and bloc-vote for the Democrats.” In response, Democrats, along with rich Republicans, keep the doors open to non-European immigration, and thus America has grown “browner” and “shorter.” (That’s Coulter’s description from Adios America). Corruption rises. So does terrorism and rape.Coulter’s ideological interpretation of Trump’s appeal is plausible. It explains, for instance, why support for Trump correlates more strongly to racial resentment than economic misfortune.

Trump may win votes by moderating his stance on immigration. But that’s not how Coulter sells books.

Coulter’s problem is that on the very week she’s unveiled her immigration-themed defense of Trumpism, Trump himself has begun jettisoning it. On Wednesday night, he admitted that it’s “very, very hard” to deport all the undocumented immigrants in the country and implied that he would be open to some people being allowed to stay legally without becoming citizens, provided they pay back taxes. Suddenly, Trump is flirting with an immigration policy that resembles that of every other Republican who ran for president. Which makes Coulter look like a dupe. On Thursday on his show, Rush Limbaugh had a hearty laugh at her expense.

Maybe Coulter, like the other high-profile supporters Trump has burned, will accept her humiliation and resort to defending Trump no matter what he says. Her incentives, however, are different. Unlike most of the folks who appear on television supporting Trump, she has an independent brand. And it’s built on white nationalism. Trump may win votes by moderating his stance on immigration. But that’s not how Coulter sells books.

Coulter also needs an explanation for Trump’s likely defeat, an explanation that will preserve her ability to claim that America’s silent majority believes the things she does. By emphasizing Trump’s immigration flip-flop, Coulter could argue that this issue cost him the white votes he needed to win.

Trumpism—a brand of conservatism defined above all by white racial nostalgia—will survive November’s election. Less clear is whether Trump will remain its champion or become its fall guy. Like many people Trump has done business with, Coulter has learned that trusting Trump is not the wisest of investments.

Coulter has described herself as a polemicist who likes to “stir up the pot,” and does not “pretend to be impartial or balanced, as broadcasters do,”[4] drawing criticism from the left, and sometimes from the right.[5] Coulter’s syndicated column for Universal Press Syndicate appears in newspapers, and is featured on major conservative websites. As of 2016, Coulter has 12 best-selling books, including most recently Adios, America! and In Trump We Trust.

Early life

Coulter as a senior in high school, 1980.

Ann Hart Coulter was born on December 8, 1961, in New York City, to John Vincent Coulter (1926–2008), an FBI agent of Irish–German heritage,[6] who was a native of Albany, New York; and Nell Husbands Coulter (née Martin; 1928–2009), a native of Paducah, Kentucky.[7][8] All eight of her paternal great-great-grandparents were immigrants.[6] Her family later moved to New Canaan, Connecticut, where Coulter and her two older brothers, James and John, were raised.[9] She was raised in a conservative household in Connecticut by Republican parents, with a father who loved Joseph McCarthy. Coulter says she has identified as a conservative since kindergarten. To prep for arguments, she read books like Barry Goldwater‘s Conscience of a Conservative.[10]

At age 14, Coulter visited her older brother in New York City where he attended law school. While he was in class, he had his little sister read books by Milton Friedman and William E. Simon. When he got home from class, he quizzed Coulter. As a reward, he and his friends took her out to bars on the Upper East Side. Reading Republican books made Coulter dream about working as a writer.[10] She graduated from New Canaan High School in 1980. Coulter’s age was disputed in 2002 while she was arguing that she was not yet 40, yet Washington Post columnist Lloyd Grove cited that she provided a birthdate of December 8, 1961, when registering to vote in New Canaan, Connecticut, prior to the 1980 Presidential election. Meanwhile, a driver’s license issued several years later allegedly listed her birthdate as December 8, 1963. Coulter will not confirm either date, citing privacy concerns.[11]

Coulter’s career is highlighted by the publication of twelve books, as well as the weekly syndicated newspaper column that she publishes. She is particularly known for her polemical style,[24] and describes herself as someone who likes to “stir up the pot. I don’t pretend to be impartial or balanced, as broadcasters do”.[25] She has been compared to Clare Boothe Luce, one of her idols, for her satirical style.[26] She also makes numerous public appearances, speaking on television and radio talk shows, as well as on collegecampuses, receiving both praise and protest. Coulter typically spends 6–12 weeks of the year on speaking engagement tours, and more when she has a book coming out.[27] In 2010, she made an estimated $500,000 on the speaking circuit, giving speeches on topics of modern conservatism, gay marriage, and what she describes as the hypocrisy of modern American liberalism.[28] During one appearance at the University of Arizona, a pie was thrown at her.[29][30][31] Coulter has, on occasion, in defense of her ideas, responded with inflammatory remarks toward hecklers and protestors who attend her speeches.[32][33]

Her second book, Slander: Liberal Lies About the American Right, published by Crown Forum in 2002, reached the number one spot on The New York Times non-fiction best seller list.[35] In Slander, Coulter argues that President George W. Bush was given unfair negative media coverage. The factual accuracy of Slander was called into question by then-comedian and author, and now Democratic U.S. Senator from Minnesota, Al Franken; he also accused her of citing passages out of context.[36] Others investigated these charges, and also raised questions about the book’s accuracy and presentation of facts.[37][38][39] Coulter responded to criticisms in a column called “Answering My Critics”.[40]

Coulter’s fifth book, published by Crown Forum in 2006, is Godless: The Church of Liberalism.[45] In it, she argues, first, that American liberalism rejects the idea of God and reviles people of faith, and second, that it bears all the attributes of a religion itself.[46]Godless debuted at number one on the New York Times Best Seller list.[47] Some passages in the book match portions of others’ writings published at an earlier time (including newspaper articles and a Planned Parenthood document), leading John Barrie of iThenticate to assert that Coulter had engaged in “textbook plagiarism”.[48]

In 1999 Coulter worked as a regular columnist for George magazine.[21][57] Coulter also wrote exclusive weekly columns between 1998 and 2003 and with occasional columns thereafter for the conservative magazine Human Events. In her columns for the magazine, she discusses judicial rulings, Constitutional issues, and legal matters affecting Congress and the executive branch.[58]

In 2001 as a contributing editor and syndicated columnist for National Review Online (NRO), Coulter was asked by editors to make changes to a piece written after the September 11 attacks. On the national television show Politically Incorrect, Coulter accused NRO of censorship and said that she was paid $5 per article. NRO dropped her column and terminated her editorship. Jonah Goldberg, editor-at-large of NRO, said, “We did not ‘fire’ Ann for what she wrote… we ended the relationship because she behaved with a total lack of professionalism, friendship, and loyalty [concerning the editing disagreement].”[59]

Coulter contracted with USA Today to cover the 2004 Democratic National Convention. She wrote one article that began, “Here at the Spawn of Satan convention in Boston…” and referred to some unspecified female attendees as “corn-fed, no make-up, natural fiber, no-bra needing, sandal-wearing, hirsute, somewhat fragrant hippie chick pie wagons”. The newspaper declined to print the article citing an editing dispute over “basic weaknesses in clarity and readability that we found unacceptable”. An explanatory article by the paper went on to say “Coulter told the online edition of Editor & Publisher magazine that ‘USA Today doesn’t like my “tone”, humor, sarcasm, etc., which raises the intriguing question of why they hired me to write for them.'” USA Today replaced Coulter with Jonah Goldberg, and Coulter published it instead on her website.[60][61][62]

In August 2005, the Arizona Daily Star dropped Coulter’s syndicated column, citing reader complaints that “Many readers find her shrill, bombastic, and mean-spirited. And those are the words used by readers who identified themselves as conservatives”.[63]

In July 2006, some newspapers replaced Coulter’s column with those of other conservative columnists following the publication of her fourth book, Godless: The Church of Liberalism.[64] After The Augusta Chronicle dropped her column, newspaper editor Michael Ryan explained that “it came to the point where she was the issue rather than what she was writing about”.[65] Ryan also stated that “pulling Ann Coulter’s column hurts; she’s one of the clearest thinkers around”.

She has criticized former president George W. Bush‘s immigration proposals, saying they led to “amnesty”. In a 2007 column, she claimed that the current immigration system was set up to deliberately reduce the percentage of whites in the population. In it, she said:[66]

In 1960, whites were 90 percent of the country. The Census Bureau recently estimated that whites already account for less than two-thirds of the population and will be a minority by 2050. Other estimates put that day much sooner.

One may assume the new majority will not be such compassionate overlords as the white majority has been. If this sort of drastic change were legally imposed on any group other than white Americans, it would be called genocide. Yet whites are called racists merely for mentioning the fact that current immigration law is intentionally designed to reduce their percentage in the population.

Overall, Coulter’s columns are highly critical of liberals and Democrats. In 2006, she wrote:[67]

This year’s Democratic plan for the future is another inane sound bite designed to trick American voters into trusting them with national security.

To wit, they’re claiming there is no connection between the war on terror and the war in Iraq, and while they are all for the war against terror—absolutely in favor of that war—they are adamantly opposed to the Iraq war. You know, the war where the U.S. military is killing thousands upon thousands of terrorists (described in the media as “Iraqi civilians”, even if they are from Jordan, like the now-dead leader of al-Qaida in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi). That war.

In an interview with Bob McKeown on the edition of January 26, 2005, of The Fifth Estate, Coulter came under criticism for her statement, “Canada used to be… one of our most… most loyal friends, and vice versa. I mean, Canada sent troops to Vietnam. Was Vietnam less containable and more of a threat than Saddam Hussein?” McKeown contradicted her with, “No, actually Canada did not send troops to Vietnam.”[69] On the edition of February 18, 2005 of Washington Journal, Coulter justified her statement by referring to the thousands of Canadians who served in the American armed forces during the Vietnam era, either because they volunteered or because they were living in the United States during the war years and got drafted. She said, “The Canadian Government didn’t send troops … but … they came and fought with the Americans. So I was wrong. It turns out there were 10,000 Americans who happened to be born in Canada.” (There were actually between 5,000 and 20,000 Canadians who fought in Vietnam itself, including approximately 80 who were killed.)[70] John Cloud of Time, writing about the incident a few months later, said, “Canada [sent] noncombat troops to Indochina in the 1950s and again to Vietnam in 1972″.[68]

Films

Coulter appeared in three films released during 2004. The first was Feeding the Beast, a made-for-television documentary on the “24-Hour News Revolution”.[71] The other two films were FahrenHYPE 9/11, a direct-to-video documentary rebuttal of Michael Moore‘s Fahrenheit 911, and Is It True What They Say About Ann?, a documentary on Coulter containing clips of interviews and speeches.[72] In 2015, Coulter had a cameo as the Vice President in the made-for-TV movie Sharknado 3: Oh Hell No!.

Personal life

Coulter has been engaged several times, but she has never married and has no children.[32] She has dated Spin founder and publisher Bob Guccione, Jr.,[21] and conservative writer Dinesh D’Souza.[73] In October 2007, she began dating Andrew Stein, the former president of the New York City Council, a liberal Democrat. When asked about the relationship, Stein told the paper, “She’s attacked a lot of my friends, but what can I say, opposites attract!”[74] On January 7, 2008, however, Stein told the New York Post that the relationship was over, citing irreconcilable differences.[75]Kellyanne Conway, who refers to Coulter as a friend, told New York Magazine in 2017 that Coulter “started dating her security guard probably ten years ago because she couldn’t see anybody else.”[76]

Religious views

Coulter is a Christian and belongs to the Presbyterian denomination.[82][83] Her father was Catholic and her mother was a Protestant.[84] At one public lecture she said, “I don’t care about anything else; Christ died for my sins, and nothing else matters.”[85] She summarized her view of Christianity in a 2004 column, saying, “Jesus’ distinctive message was: People are sinful and need to be redeemed, and this is your lucky day, because I’m here to redeem you even though you don’t deserve it, and I have to get the crap kicked out of me to do it.” She then mocked “the message of Jesus… according to liberals”, summarizing it as “something along the lines of ‘be nice to people,'” which, in turn, she said “is, in fact, one of the incidental tenets of Christianity.”[86]

Confronting some critics’ views that her content and style of writing is un-Christian-like,[87] Coulter stated that “I’m a Christian first and a mean-spirited, bigoted conservative second, and don’t you ever forget it.”[88]She also said, “Christianity fuels everything I write. Being a Christian means that I am called upon to do battle against lies, injustice, cruelty, hypocrisy—you know, all the virtues in the church of liberalism”.[89] In Godless: The Church of Liberalism, Coulter characterized the theory of evolution as bogus science, and contrasted her beliefs to what she called the left’s “obsession with Darwinism and the Darwinian view of the world, which replaces sanctification of life with sanctification of sex and death”.[90] Coulter subscribes to intelligent design, a theory that rejects evolution.[91]

Coulter was accused of anti-semitism in an October 8, 2007, interview with Donny Deutsch on The Big Idea. During the interview, Coulter stated that the United States is a Christian nation, and said that she wants “Jews to be perfected, as they say” (referring to them being converted to Christianity).[92] Deutsch, a practicing Jew, implied that this was an anti-semitic remark, but Coulter said she didn’t consider it to be a hateful comment.[93][94] In response to Coulter’s comments on the show, the Anti-Defamation League, American Jewish Committee and Bradley Burston condemned those comments,[95] and the National Jewish Democratic Council asked media outlets to stop inviting Coulter as a guest commentator.[96] Talk show host Dennis Prager, while disagreeing with her comments, said that they were not “anti-semitic”, noting, “There is nothing in what Ann Coulter said to a Jewish interviewer on CNBC that indicates she hates Jews or wishes them ill, or does damage to the Jewish people or the Jewish state. And if none of those criteria is present, how can someone be labeled anti-Semitic?”[97] Conservative activist David Horowitz also defended Coulter against the allegation.[98]

Coulter again sparked outrage in September 2015, when she tweeted in response to multiple Republican candidates’ references to Israel during a Presidential debate, “How many f—ing Jews do these people think there are in the United States?”[99] The Anti-Defamation League referred to the tweets as “ugly, spiteful and anti-Semitic.”[100] In response to accusations of anti-Semitism, she tweeted “I like the Jews, I like fetuses, I like Reagan. Didn’t need to hear applause lines about them all night.”[99]

She also opposes civil unions[112] and privatizing marriage.[113] When addressed with the issue of rights granted by marriage, she said, “Gays already can visit loved ones in hospitals. They can also visit neighbors, random acquaintances, and total strangers in hospitals—just like everyone else. Gays can also pass on property to whomever they would like”.[114] She disagreed with the U.S. Supreme Court‘s 2003 Lawrence v. Texas ruling, stating there was no right to sodomy written in the Constitution and that under federalism each individual state and territory would have to repeal their sodomy laws. She stated she opposed banning same-sex sexual intercourse.[115] She also stated that same-sex sexual intercourse was already protected under the Fourth Amendment, which prevents police from going into your home without a search warrant or court order.[116]

LGBT conservatism

Since the 1990s, Coulter has had many acquaintances in the LGBT community. She considers herself “the Judy Garland of the Right.” In the last few years, Coulter has attracted many LGBT fans, namely gay men and drag queens.[10][120][121]

At the 2007 CPAC, Coulter said, “I do want to point out one thing that has been driving me crazy with the media—how they keep describing Mitt Romney‘s position as being pro-gays, and that’s going to upset the right wingers,” and “Well, you know, screw you! I’m not anti-gay. We’re against gay marriage. I don’t want gays to be discriminated against.” She added, “I don’t know why all gays aren’t Republican. I think we have the pro-gay positions, which is anti-crime and for tax cuts. Gays make a lot of money and they’re victims of crime. No, they are! They should be with us.”[122]

In Coulter’s 2007 book If Democrats Had Any Brains, They’d Be Republicans, in the chapter “Gays: No Gay Left Behind!”, she argued that Republican policies were more pro-gay than Democratic policies. Coulter attended the 2010 HomoCon of GOProud, where she commented that same-sex marriage “is not a civil right.”[123] On February 9, 2011, in a column, Coulter described the national Log Cabin Republicans as “ridiculous” and “not conservative at all.” She did however describe the Texas branch of Log Cabin Republicans, for whom she’s been signing books for years, as “comprised of real conservatives.”[124]

At the 2011 CPAC, during her question-and-answer segment, Coulter was asked about GOProud and the controversy over their exclusion from the 2011 CPAC. She boasted how she talked GOProud into dropping its support for same-sex marriage in the party’s platform, saying, “The left is trying to co-opt gays, and I don’t think we should let them. I think they should be on our side,” and “Gays are natural conservatives.”[125] Later that year, Coulter joined advisory board for GOProud. On LogosThe A-List: Dallas she told gay Republican Taylor Garrett that “The gays have got to be pro-life,” and “As soon as they find the gay gene, guess who the liberal yuppies are gonna start aborting?”[126] Coulter has referred to Democractic politicians Bill Clinton, Al Gore, and John Edwards as “fag(got).”[127]

War on Drugs

Coulter spoke about drugs as a guest on Piers Morgan Live, when she said that marijuana users “can’t perform daily functions.”[130]

Political activities and commentary

Ann Coulter has described herself as a “polemicist” who likes to “stir up the pot” and doesn’t “pretend to be impartial or balanced, as broadcasters do.”[4] While her political activities in the past have included advising a plaintiff suing President Bill Clinton as well as considering a run for Congress, she mostly serves as a political pundit, sometimes creating controversy ranging from rowdy uprisings at some of the colleges where she speaks to protracted discussions in the media. Time magazine’s John Cloud once observed that Coulter “likes to shock reporters by wondering aloud whether America might be better off if women lost the right to vote.”[68] This was in reference to her statement that “it would be a much better country if women did not vote. That is simply a fact. In fact, in every presidential election since 1950—except Goldwater in ’64—the Republican would have won, if only the men had voted.”[131] Similarly, in an October 2007 interview with the New York Observer, Coulter said:[132]

If we took away women’s right to vote, we’d never have to worry about another Democrat president. It’s kind of a pipe dream, it’s a personal fantasy of mine, but I don’t think it’s going to happen. And it is a good way of making the point that women are voting so stupidly, at least single women.

It also makes the point, it is kind of embarrassing, the Democratic Party ought to be hanging its head in shame, that it has so much difficulty getting men to vote for it. I mean, you do see it’s the party of women and ‘We’ll pay for health care and tuition and day care—and here, what else can we give you, soccer moms?’

In addition to questioning whether women’s right to vote is a good thing, Coulter has also appeared on Fox News and advocated for a poll tax and a literacy test for voters (this was in 1999, and she reiterated her support of a literacy test in 2015).[133] This is not a viewpoint widely shared by members of the Republican Party.

Paula Jones – Bill Clinton case

Coulter first became a public figure shortly before becoming an unpaid legal adviser for the attorneys representing Paula Jones in her sexual harassment suit against President Bill Clinton. Coulter’s friend George Conway had been asked to assist Jones’ attorneys, and shortly afterward Coulter, who wrote a column about the Paula Jones case for Human Events, was also asked to help, and she began writing legal briefs for the case.

Coulter later stated that she would come to mistrust the motives of Jones’ head lawyer, Joseph Cammaratta, who by August or September 1997 was advising Jones that her case was weak and to settle, if a favorable settlement could be negotiated.[18][134] From the outset, Jones had sought an apology from Clinton at least as eagerly as she sought a settlement.[135] However, in a later interview Coulter recounted that she herself had believed that the case was strong, that Jones was telling the truth, that Clinton should be held publicly accountable for his misconduct, and that a settlement would give the impression that Jones was merely interested in extorting money from the President.[18]

Coulter played one particularly key role in keeping the Jones case alive. In Newsweek reporter Michael Isikoff’s new book Uncovering Clinton: A Reporter’s Story, Coulter is unmasked as the one who leaked word of Clinton’s “distinguishing characteristic”—his reportedly unusually large penis that Jones said she could recognize and describe—to the news media. Her hope was to foster mistrust between the Clinton and Jones camps and forestall a settlement … I thought if I leaked the distinguishing characteristic it would show bad faith in negotiations. [Clinton lawyer] Bob Bennett would think Jones had leaked it. Cammaratta would know he himself hadn’t leaked it and would get mad at Bennett. It might stall negotiations enough for me to get through to [Jones adviser] Susan Carpenter-McMillan to tell her that I thought settling would hurt Paula, that this would ruin her reputation, and that there were other lawyers working for her. Then 36 hours later, she returned my phone call. I just wanted to help Paula. I really think Paula Jones is a hero. I don’t think I could have taken the abuse she came under. She’s this poor little country girl and she has the most powerful man she’s ever met hitting on her sexually, then denying it and smearing her as president. And she never did anything tacky. It’s not like she was going on TV or trying to make a buck out of it.”[18]

In his book, Isikoff also reported Coulter as saying: “We were terrified that Jones would settle. It was contrary to our purpose of bringing down the President.”[134] After the book came out, Coulter clarified her stated motives, saying:

The only motive for leaking the distinguishing characteristic item that [Isikoff] gives in his book is my self-parodying remark that “it would humiliate the president” and that a settlement would foil our efforts to bring down the president … I suppose you could take the position, as [Isikoff] does, that we were working for Jones because we thought Clinton was a lecherous, lying scumbag, but this argument gets a bit circular. You could also say that Juanita Broaddrick’s secret motive in accusing Clinton of rape is that she hates Clinton because he raped her. The whole reason we didn’t much like Clinton was that we could see he was the sort of man who would haul a low-level government employee like Paula to his hotel room, drop his pants, and say, “Kiss it.” You know: Everything his defense said about him at the impeachment trial. It’s not like we secretly disliked Clinton because of his administration’s position on California’s citrus cartels or something, and then set to work on some crazy scheme to destroy him using a pathological intern as our Mata Hari.[136]

The case went to court after Jones broke with Coulter and her original legal team, and it was dismissed via summary judgment. The judge ruled that even if her allegations proved true, Jones did not show that she had suffered any damages, stating, “… plaintiff has not demonstrated any tangible job detriment or adverse employment action for her refusal to submit to the governor’s alleged advances. The president is therefore entitled to summary judgment on plaintiff’s claim of quid pro quo sexual harassment.” The ruling was appealed by Jones’ lawyers. During the pendency of the appeal, Clinton settled with Jones for $850,000 ($151,000 after legal fees) in November 1998, in exchange for Jones’ dismissal of the appeal. By then, the Jones lawsuit had given way to the Monica Lewinsky sex scandal.

In October 2000, Jones revealed that she would pose for nude pictures in an adult magazine, saying she wanted to use the money to pay taxes and support her grade-school-aged children, in particular saying, “I’m wanting to put them through college and maybe set up a college fund.”[137] Coulter publicly denounced Jones, calling her “the trailer-park trash they said she was” (Coulter had earlier chastened Clinton supporters for calling Jones this name),[138] after Clinton’s former campaign strategist James Carville had made the widely reported remark, “Drag a $100 bill through a trailer park, and you’ll never know what you’ll find,” and called Jones a “fraud, at least to the extent of pretending to be an honorable and moral person.”[137]

Coulter wrote:

Paula surely was given more than a million dollars in free legal assistance from an array of legal talent she will never again encounter in her life, much less have busily working on her behalf. Some of those lawyers never asked for or received a dime for hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal work performed at great professional, financial and personal cost to themselves. Others got partial payments out of the settlement. But at least they got her reputation back. And now she’s thrown it away.[139]

Jones claimed not to have been offered any help with a book deal of her own or any other additional financial help after the lawsuit.[137]

I was going to have a few comments on the other Democratic presidential candidate, John Edwards, but it turns out that you have to go into rehab if you use the word ‘faggot,’ so I’m… so, kind of at an impasse, can’t really talk about Edwards, so I think I’ll just conclude here and take your questions.

The comment was in reference to Grey’s Anatomy star Isaiah Washington‘s use of the epithet and his subsequent mandatory “psychological assessment” imposed by ABC executives.[142] It was widely interpreted as meaning that Coulter had called Edwards a “faggot,” but Coulter argued that she did not actually do so, while simultaneously indicating she would not have been wrong to say it.[143] Edwards responded on his web site by characterizing Coulter’s words as “un-American and indefensible,” and asking readers to help him “raise $100,000 in ‘Coulter Cash’ this week to keep this campaign charging ahead and fight back against the politics of bigotry.”[144] He also called her a “she-devil,” adding, “I should not have name-called. But the truth is—forget the names—people like Ann Coulter, they engage in hateful language.”[145] Coulter’s words also drew condemnation from many prominent Republicans and Democrats, as well as groups such as the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD).[144][146][147] Three advertisers (Verizon, Sallie Mae and Netbank) also pulled their advertisements from Coulter’s web site,[148] and several newspapers dropped her column.[149][150] Coulter responded in an e-mail to the New York Times, “C’mon, it was a joke. I would never insult gays by suggesting that they are like John Edwards. That would be mean.”[147] On March 5, 2007, she appeared on Hannity and Colmes and said, “Faggot isn’t offensive to gays; it has nothing to do with gays. It’s a schoolyard taunt meaning ‘wuss.'”[151] Gay rights advocates were not convinced. “Ann Coulter’s use of this anti-gay slur is vile and unacceptable,” said Neil G. Giuliano, president of the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, “and the applause from her audience is an important reminder that Coulter’s ugly brand of bigotry is at the root of the discriminatory policies being promoted at this gathering.”[141] A spokesman for Sen. John McCain, a Republican presidential candidate, called Coulter’s comments “wildly inappropriate.”[141]

As the campaign waged on, she continued to insert her commentary regarding the candidates, both Democrats and Republicans. In a June 2007 interview, Coulter named Duncan Hunter as her choice for the 2008 Republican Presidential nomination, highlighting his views on immigration and specifically his anti-abortion credentials, saying “[t]his is a winning issue for us, protecting little babies.”[152] On January 16, 2008, Coulter began endorsing Governor Mitt Romney as her choice for the 2008 Republican nomination, saying he is “manifestly the best candidate” (contrasting Romney with Republican candidates John McCain, Mike Huckabee, and Rudy Giuliani).[153] By contrast, Coulter was critical of eventual Republican nominee John McCain. On the January 31, 2008, broadcast of Hannity and Colmes, Coulter claimed that if McCain won the Republican nomination for president, she would support and campaign for Hillary Clinton, stating, “[Clinton] is more conservative than McCain.”[154]

Regarding then-presidential-candidate Barack Obama in an April 2, 2008, column, she characterized his book Dreams from My Father as a “dimestore Mein Kampf.” Coulter writes, “He says the reason black people keep to themselves is that it’s ‘easier than spending all your time mad or trying to guess whatever it was that white folks were thinking about you.’ Here’s a little inside scoop about white people: We’re not thinking about you. Especially WASPs. We think everybody is inferior, and we are perfectly charming about it.”[155]

On the eve of Coulter’s first speech at the University of Western Ontario, an e-mail to Coulter from François Houle, provost of the University of Ottawa, was leaked to the media. The e-mail warned that “promoting hatred against any identifiable group would not only be considered inappropriate, but could in fact lead to criminal charges.” Coulter released a public statement alleging that by sending her the e-mail, Houle was promoting hatred against conservatives.[157] During her speech at the University of Western Ontario, she told a Muslim student to “take a camel,” in response to the student’s question about previous comments by Coulter that Muslims should not be allowed on airplanes.[158]

On March 22, the University of Ottawa made international news when liberal protesters conspired to prevent Coulter from speaking. The event was canceled in spite of a massive security presence; Alain Boucher of the Ottawa Police Service said there were ten officers visible at the scene, “plus other resources” nearby.[159] Boucher alleged that Coulter’s security team decided to call off the event, saying, “We gave her options,” including, he said, to “find a bigger venue.” But “they opted to cancel … It’s not up to the Ottawa police to make that decision.”[160] Boucher claimed there were no arrests.[161] CTV News reported, “It was a disaster in terms of just organization, which is probably one of the reasons why it was cancelled,” citing the small number of students tasked with confirming who had signed up to attend Coulter’s talk.[162]

Event organizer and conservative activist Ezra Levant blamed the protest on the letter sent to Coulter by Houle.[163] After the cancellation, Coulter called the University of Ottawa “bush league,” stating:[164]

I go to the best schools, Harvard, the Ivy League, and those kids are too intellectually proud to threaten speakers … I would like to know when this sort of violence, this sort of protest, has been inflicted upon a Muslim—who appear to be, from what I’ve read of the human rights complaints, the only protected group in Canada. I think I’ll give my speech tomorrow night in a burka. That will protect me.

Comments on Islam, Arabs, and terrorism

Airports scrupulously apply the same laughably ineffective airport harassment to Suzy Chapstick as to Muslim hijackers. It is preposterous to assume every passenger is a potential crazed homicidal maniac. We know who the homicidal maniacs are. They are the ones cheering and dancing right now. We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity. We weren’t punctilious about locating and punishing only Hitler and his top officers. We carpet-bombed German cities; we killed civilians. That’s war. And this is war.[165]

This comment resulted in Coulter’s being fired as a columnist by the National Review, which she subsequently referred to as “squeamish girly-boys.”[166] Responding to this comment, Ibrahim Hooper of the Council on American-Islamic Relations remarked in The Chicago Sun Times that before September 11, Coulter “would have faced swift repudiation from her colleagues,” but “now it’s accepted as legitimate commentary.”[167]

I began running Coulter columns on Frontpagemag.com shortly after she came up with her most infamous line, which urged America to put jihadists to the sword and convert them to Christianity. Liberals were horrified; I was not. I thought to myself, this is a perfect send-up of what our Islamo-fascist enemies believe—that as infidels we should be put to the sword and converted to Islam. I regarded Coulter’s phillipic (sic) as a Swiftian commentary on liberal illusions of multi-cultural outreach to people who want to rip out our hearts.[168]

One day after the attacks (when death toll estimates were higher than later), Coulter asserted that only Muslims could have been behind the attacks:

Not all Muslims may be terrorists, but all terrorists are Muslims—at least all terrorists capable of assembling a murderous plot against America that leaves 7,000 people dead in under two hours.[169]

If only we could get Muslims to boycott all airlines, we could dispense with airport security altogether.[171]

Coulter also cited the 2002 Senate testimony of FBI whistleblower Coleen Rowley, who was acclaimed for condemning her superiors for refusing to authorize a search warrant for 9-11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui when he refused to consent to a search of his computer. They knew that he was a Muslim in flight school who had overstayed his visa, and the French Intelligence Service had confirmed his affiliations with radical fundamentalist Islamic groups. Coulter said she agreed that probable cause existed in the case, but that refusing consent, being in flight school and overstaying a visa should not constitute grounds for a search. Citing a poll which found that 98 percent of Muslims between the ages of 20 and 45 said they would not fight for Britain in the war in Afghanistan, and that 48 percent said they would fight for Osama bin Laden she asserted “any Muslim who has attended a mosque in Europe—certainly in England, where Moussaoui lived—has had ‘affiliations with radical fundamentalist Islamic groups,'” so that she parsed Rowley’s position as meaning that “‘probable cause’ existed to search Moussaoui’s computer because he was a Muslim who had lived in England.” Coulter says the poll was “by the “Daily Telegraph“, actually it was by Sunrise, an “Asian” (i.e., Indian subcontinent-oriented) radio station, canvassing the opinions of 500 Muslims in Greater London (not Britain as a whole), mainly of Pakistani origin and aged between 20 and 45. Because “FBI headquarters … refused to engage in racial profiling,” they failed to uncover the 9-11 plot, Coulter asserted. “The FBI allowed thousands of Americans to be slaughtered on the altar of political correctness. What more do liberals want?”[172][173]

Coulter wrote in another column that she had reviewed the civil rights lawsuits against certain airlines to determine which of them had subjected Arabs to the most “egregious discrimination” so that she could fly only that airline. She also said that the airline should be bragging instead of denying any of the charges of discrimination brought against them.[174] In an interview with The Guardian she said, “I think airlines ought to start advertising: ‘We have the most civil rights lawsuits brought against us by Arabs.'” When the interviewer replied by asking what Muslims would do for travel, she responded, “They could use flying carpets.”[131]

One comment that drew criticism from the blogosphere, as well as fellow conservatives,[175] was made during a speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference in February 2006, where she said, referring to the prospect of a nuclear-equipped Iran, “What if they start having one of these bipolar episodes with nuclear weapons? I think our motto should be, post-9-11: Raghead talks tough, raghead faces consequences.”[176] Coulter had previously written a nearly identical passage in her syndicated column: “… I believe our motto should be, after 9/11: Jihad monkey talks tough; jihad monkey takes the consequences. Sorry, I realize that’s offensive. How about ‘camel jockey‘? What? Now what’d I say? Boy, you tent merchants sure are touchy. Grow up, would you?”[177]

In October 2007, Coulter made further controversial remarks regarding Arabs—in this case Iraqis—when she stated in an interview with The New York Observer:

We’ve killed about 20,000 of them, of terrorists, of militants, of Al Qaeda members, and they’ve gotten a little over 3,000 of ours. That is where the war is being fought, in Iraq. That is where we are fighting Al Qaeda. Sorry we have to use your country, Iraqis, but you let Saddam come to power, and we are going to instill democracy in your country.[178]

In a May 2007 article looking back at the life of recently deceased evangelical Reverend Jerry Falwell, Coulter commented on his (later retracted) statement after the 9/11 attacks that “the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People For the American Way, all of them who have tried to secularize America … helped this happen.” In her article, Coulter stated that she disagreed with Falwell’s statement, “because Falwell neglected to specifically include Teddy Kennedy and ‘the Reverend’ Barry Lynn.”[179]

In October 2007, Coulter participated in David Horowitz‘ “Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week,” remarking in a speech at the University of Southern California, “The fact of Islamo-Fascism is indisputable. I find it tedious to detail the savagery of the enemy … I want to kill them. Why don’t Democrats?”[180]

In the wake of the Boston Marathon bombings, Coulter told Hannity host Sean Hannity that the wife of bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev should be jailed for wearing a hijab. Coulter continued by saying “Assimilating immigrants into our culture isn’t really working. They’re assimilating us into their culture.”[181]

In the wake of the Charlie Hebdo shooting in Paris, Coulter said France “needs to move to the next step” in dealing with terror. Coulter said of some immigrants:

They don’t want to live in Muslim countries, and yet they want to change the non-Muslim countries they move to [into] Muslim countries. It may be a small minority of Muslims “and still it’s enough of them that maybe you take a little pause in Muslim immigration for a while.”[182]

Coulter has attributed American gun violence in America to black and Muslim American men, stating that the epidemic of gun-related deaths is “not a gun problem, it’s a demographic problem.”[183]

When asked about the financial crisis in the 2000s, Coulter claimed one reason for it was that “they gave your mortgage to a less qualified minority.”[184]

Ionizing radiation as “cancer vaccine”

On March 16, 2011, discussing the Fukushima I nuclear accidents, Coulter, citing research into radiation hormesis, wrote that there was “burgeoning evidence that excess radiation operates as a sort of cancer vaccine.”[185] Her comments were criticized by figures across the political spectrum, from Fox News‘ Bill O’Reilly (who told Coulter, “You have to be responsible … in something like this, you gotta get the folks out of there, and you have to report worst-case scenarios”)[186] to MSNBC‘s Ed Schulz (who stated that “You would laugh at her if she wasn’t making light of a terrible tragedy.”)[187]

2012 presidential election

During the Republican Party presidential primaries, she supported Mitt Romney over former Speaker of the HouseNewt Gingrich. On an interview during The O’Reilly Factor on Fox News, she compared Newt Gingrich’s attacks on the media to Jesse Jackson “accusing people of racism.”[188] On her website, she posted a column titled, “Re-elect Obama: Vote Newt!” arguing that if Newt Gingrich won the Republican nomination, Barack Obama would win re-election.[189] When asked to respond about her criticism, Newt Gingrich dismissed them as “the old order” and cited recent polls showing him ahead of Mitt Romney.[190]

On October 22, 2012, following a presidential debate between Mitt Romney and Barack Obama, Coulter published the following tweet from her official Twitter account: “I highly approve of Romney’s decision to be kind and gentle to the retard,” drawing stiff criticism for her use of a word which some find offensive to describe the president of the United States. The Special Olympics condemned Coulter in a tweet shortly after Coulter’s.[191] On The Alan Colmes Show, Coulter stated that she does not regret her use of the word, saying, “‘Retard’ had been used colloquially to just mean ‘loser’ for 30 years. But no, these aggressive victims have to come out and tell you what words to use.”[192]

After the election, in which Barack Obama won, Ann Coulter wrote a column titled “Romney Was Not the Problem”. In it she argued against the idea that Mitt Romney lost because he failed to get his message across. She also said that Mitt Romney lost because he was running against an incumbent.[193]

2013 CPAC Conference

In March 2013, Coulter was one of the keynote speakers at the Conservative Political Action Conference, where she made references to New Jersey Governor Chris Christie‘s weight (“CPAC had to cut back on its speakers this year about 300 pounds”) and progressive activist Sandra Fluke‘s hairdo. (Coulter quipped that Fluke didn’t need birth control pills because “that haircut is birth control enough.”) Coulter advocated against a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants because such new citizens would never vote for Republican candidates: “If amnesty goes through, America becomes California and no Republican will ever win another election.”[194][195]

2016 presidential election

In the summer of 2015, Coulter appeared on Real Time with Bill Maher and predicted of all of the Republicans that have announced their candidacy for the presidency, that Donald Trump had the best chance of winning the general election, she was laughed at by the studio audience.[196] Coulter later endorsed Donald Trump in the general election.[197]

Berkeley cancellation

In April 2017, The New York Times reported that the University of California, Berkeley had cancelled Ann Coulter’s speech scheduled for April 27.[205] A university spokesman said they had not discussed a specific date with her and only learned about it by reading news reports.[206] The university administrators cited threats of violence and offered to accommodate her on a later date. Coulter said she saw no way forward, telling The New York Times, “It’s a sad day for free speech.”[207] Both Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren publicly called for the university to defend her right to free speech.[207]

Plagiarism accusations

In October 2001, Coulter was accused of plagiarism in her 1998 book High Crimes and Misdemeanors by Michael Chapman, a columnist for the journal Human Events who claims that passages were taken from a supplement he wrote for the journal in 1997 titled “A Case for Impeachment.”[166]

On the July 5, 2016, episode of Countdown with Keith Olbermann, guest John Barrie, the CEO of iParadigms, offers his professional opinion that Coulter plagiarized in her book Godless as well as in many columns over the past year.[208] Barrie ran “Godless” through iThenticate, his company’s machine which is able to scan works and compare them to existing texts. He points to a 25 word section of the text that exactly matches a Planned Parenthood pamphlet and a 33 word section almost duplicating a 1999 article from the Portland Press as some examples of evidence.

Media Matters for America has appealed to Random House publishing to further investigate Coulter’s work.[209] The syndicator of her columns cleared her of the plagiarism charges.[210] Universal Press Syndicate and Crown Books also defended Coulter against the charges.[211]

Columnist Bill Nemitz from the Portland Press Herald accused Coulter of plagiarizing a very specific sentence from his newspaper in her book Godless, but he also acknowledged that one sentence is insufficient grounds for filing suit.[212]

Public perception

General

Sometimes referred to as an “internet queen,”[213] Coulter’s has a high public profile. [214]

Gendered criticism

Known for rejecting “the academic convention of euphemism and circumlocution,”[215] Coulter has been subject to a fair amount of criticism from scholars. Feminist critics have criticized the way that Coulter functions as a thin, blonde, heterosexual woman in the Republican party who prefers mini skirts and heels over a business suit. The argument here is that Coulter plays to misogyny in order to further her goals; she “dominates without threatening (at least not straight men).”[216] These critics also reject Coulter’s opinion that the gains made by women have as far as to create an anti-male society[217] and her call for women to be rejected from the military because they are more vicious than men.[218] Like the famous anti-feminist Phyllis Schlafly, Coulter uses traditionally masculine rhetoric as reasoning for the need for traditional gender roles, and she carries this idea of feminized dependency into her governmental policies, according to feminist critics.[219]

2016 Comedy Central Roast

In September 2016, Coulter was invited to participate in a roast of Rob Lowe on Comedy Central, as Coulter is often considered a successful satirist.[220] There is speculation that Coulter attended with the primary goal of promoting her newest book at the time, In Trump We Trust, but she ended up becoming the main target of the vitriol, and the roast subsequently went viral. Coulter herself refers to the roast as the “Ann Coulter Roast with Rob Lowe.”[221]

As bonds break a three day win streak and the U.S market hitting new record highs with a trifecta of records, CNBC was roaring about what to expect going forward. The Daily Reckoning contributor David Stockman joined Courtney Reagan to discuss what to expect going forward.

After the CNBC host positioned the critiques offered by David Stockman of the Trump administration she asked whether that would continue given the state of the market. Stockman did not mix words beginning the conversation with, “What’s going on today is complete insanity. The market is apparently pricing in a huge Trump stimulus package, when if you just look at the real world out there the only thing that is going to happen is a fiscal bloodbath and a White House train wreck like never before in U.S history.

How much more evidence do these so called traders need? Trump is lost in Twitter-land and he is out of control. He is turning out to be a complete jackass in the Oval Office. Co-President Bannon is off the deep end on terrorism, travel bans, Mexican walls, immigrant bashing and protectionism.”

David Stockman is a former Reagan Administration official who was the Office of Management and Budget Director. He also served as a two-term Congressman from the great state of Michigan. His latest book, Trumped! A Nation on the Brink of Ruin… And How to Bring It Back is out now. It offers his insight and exclusive analysis on exactly what the newly elected president must do in order to succeed in the White House. To get your own FREE copy, CLICK HERE to learn how.

“[They are] having nothing to do with the economic agenda and Trump has got an empty economic bench. He’s got no Secretary of the Treasury, no Office of Management and Budget, no Council of Economic Advisor Chairman. By this time, when I was there with the Reagan Administration, the plan was ready to go and he was going to Congress within a couple of days into February. We have a debt ceiling freight train coming down the road which will hit March 15 and then the cash will start running out and the system will be on edge. All of the continuing resolutions expire in April.”

“They are going to spend the year trying to repeal and replace Obamacare and it will be a fiasco. Nothing is going to happen this year. I don’t even think they can pass the budget resolution. There is going to be no tax action this year. If there is any bill next year it is going to be deficit neutral. Which means it is not going to add $15 to earnings like these crazy people expect.”

“Why would you be trading in this market, with this kind of chaos emerging everywhere at twenty six times trailing earnings? That’s where we are. It is completely crazy and it is only a question of how many more days or weeks that this kind of fantasy land can last.”

Courtney Reagan then pressed back asking, “At what point do you give in and admit that [Trump] is atypical but maybe he could get things done? I mean, look at all of the CEO’s that Trump has met with.” The former Reagan insider remarked that, “CEO’s come and go with every president. They came in with Reagan, they tell a president what they want to hear. These guys are just selling the song and dance about how many jobs they’re going to create in the next five years. They have no clue.”

“If we have a recession in the next five years, which surely we will, because recessions have not been outlawed and we haven’t had one for ten years. None of this stuff is going to happen. This is meaningless. What is meaningful is that Trump is out of control. This tweeting and getting off track on all of this terrorism stuff. This is a sign that there is going to be no governing coalition and that all of this fiscal stimulus expected by Wall Street is a complete fantasy. It can’t happen.”

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When CNBC then turned over the camera to a day trader who asked about the positive sentiment that exists within the market regarding Trump and his plan to deregulate Stockman stayed true to message. “Trump is just putting out press releases and the guise of Executive Orders. All of this stuff is going to get litigated, it goes through a rulemaking process, that takes years. So the relief on regulation will be important, but it way down the road and it won’t be that impactful.”

“The second thing, is we’re at 92 months in this expansion already. It is running out of gas. You can’t expect it to run forever. That is seemingly what is priced in by the market.”

“The third thing is, we have a giant debt and deficit problem. The debt ceiling is coming back into play it will be 20 trillion when it freezes in on March 15th. I’ll tell you this, people aren’t paying attention to the fact that Trump will never get a debt ceiling increase through the Congress without a government shutdown. When that happens it is, “bar the doors” because nobody is expecting it. We need to look at the facts, not the hopes.”

As the CNBC affirmed, it is not clear that the market is just going to drop tomorrow and history will repeat itself, Stockman repositioned. “The market it clearly factoring in a big Trump stimulus and I think anybody down there would admit if it doesn’t happen, if we get zero tax cuts, if we get a fiscal bloodbath in the Washington I am describing – the market is not going to stay where it is today at these absurd multiples of earnings.”

“This is all based on the idea that there is going to be a surge of economic growth and that profits are going to come back from about $89 a share by basis, where they were during the last twelve months, to a potential $110 or $130. My argument is there is not going to be any economic rebound. There is not going to be any profit surge. Therefore the market will be repricing dramatically downward once it is clear.”

Another CNBC analysis asked why – with the positive trends in jobless claims, manufacturing increasing, interest rates at near record lows – would the market not close out the year near record levels? “The market is assuming that profits are going to rebound. That we are not going to have any market dislocation and that nobody is going to be pushing back on Trump. It is hard to understand how people watching the day-to-day action down there could believe that.”

“Everybody is pushing back on Trump, he can’t even get his cabinet approved. He’s going to be bogged down in a Supreme Court fight, he’s going to be bogged down in a fight over a ridiculous travel ban. The idea that there is not going to be pushback is naive. What there is going to be is a train wreck. It is already clear that the people in the White House have no idea what they’re doing and it is only a matter of time before this honeymoon goodwill evaporates and the politicians get down to doing what they do best. Which is to undermine and obstruct anything that might be positive.”

When finally asked whether there is anything positive that would make him turn bullish in the near future he responded affirmably, “No, because Trump is inheriting thirty years of a disaster created by his predecessors. We have to take this $20 trillion of debt seriously. There is $10 trillion more built in under current policy, and that is without a dime of Trump tax cuts, infrastructure or stimulus. There is going to be a tremendous fiscal crisis in the years ahead which will prevent any of the kind of action that the “stimulus junkies” are looking for.

Office of Management and Budget

Stockman was one of the most controversial OMB directors ever appointed, also known as the “Father of Reaganomics.” He resigned in August 1985. Committed to the doctrine of supply-side economics, he assisted in the passing of the “Reagan Budget” (the Gramm-Latta Budget), which Stockman hoped would curtail the “welfare state“. He thus gained a reputation as a tough negotiator with House Speaker Tip O’Neill‘s Democratic-controlled House of Representatives and Majority Leader Howard Baker‘s Republican-controlled Senate. During this period, Stockman became well known to the public during the contentious political wrangling concerning the role of the federal government in American society.

Stockman’s influence within the Reagan Administration was weakened after the Atlantic Monthly magazine published the infamous 18,246 word article, “The Education of David Stockman”,[7] in its December 1981 issue, based on lengthy interviews Stockman gave to reporter William Greider.

Stockman was quoted as referring to Reagan’s tax act in these terms: “I mean, Kemp-Roth [Reagan’s 1981 tax cut] was always a Trojan horse to bring down the top rate…. It’s kind of hard to sell ‘trickle down.’ So the supply-side formula was the only way to get a tax policy that was really ‘trickle down.’ Supply-side is ‘trickle-down’ theory.”[7] Of the budget process during his first year on the job, Stockman was quoted as saying, “None of us really understands what’s going on with all these numbers,” which was used as the subtitle of the article.[7]

After “being taken to the woodshed by the president” because of his candor with Greider, Stockman became concerned with the projected trend of increasingly large federal deficits and the rapidly expanding national debt. On 1 August 1985, he resigned from OMB and later wrote a memoir of his experience in the Reagan Administration titled The Triumph of Politics: Why the Reagan Revolution Failed in which he specifically criticized the failure of congressional Republicans to endorse a reduction of government spending to offset large tax decreases to avoid the creation of large deficits and an increasing national debt.

Fiscal legacy

President Jimmy Carter’s last fiscal year budget ended with a $79.0 billion budget deficit (and a national debt of $907,701,000,000 [8] as of September 30, 1980), ending during the period of David Stockman’s and Ronald Reagan’s first year in office, on October 1, 1981.[9] The gross federal national debt had just increased to $1.0 trillion during October 1981 ($998 billion on 30 September 1981, up from $907.7 billion during the last full fiscal year of the Carter administration[8]).

By 30 September 1985, four and a half years into the Reagan administration and shortly after Stockman’s resignation from the OMB during August 1985, the gross federal debt was $1.8 trillion.[8] Stockman’s OMB work within the administration during 1981 until August 1985 was dedicated to negotiating with the Senate and House about the next fiscal year’s budget, executed later during the autumn of 1985, which resulted in the national debt becoming $2.1 trillion at fiscal year end 30 September 1986.[8] Reaganomics had just begun.

In 1981, Stockman received the Samuel S. Beard Award for Greatest Public Service by an Individual 35 Years or Under, an award given out annually by Jefferson Awards.[10]

Business career

After leaving government, Stockman joined the Wall St. investment bank Salomon Brothers and later became a partner of the New York–based private equity company, the Blackstone Group.[11]:125–127 His record was mixed at Blackstone, with some very good investments, such as American Axle, but also failures, including Haynes International and Republic Technologies.[11]:144–147 During 1999, after Blackstone CEO Stephen A. Schwarzman curtailed Stockman’s role in managing the investments he had developed,[11]:146 Stockman resigned from Blackstone to start his own private equity fund company, Heartland Industrial Partners, L.P., based in Greenwich, Connecticut.[12]

On the strength of his investment record at Blackstone, Stockman and his partners raised $1.3 billion of equity from institutional and other investors. With Stockman’s guidance, Heartland used a contrarian investment strategy, buying controlling interests in companies operating in sectors of the U.S. economy that were attracting the least amount of new equity: auto parts and textiles. With the help of about $9 billion in Wall Street debt financing, Heartland completed more than 20 transactions in less than 2 years to create four portfolio companies: Springs Industries, Metaldyne, Collins & Aikman, and TriMas. Several major investments performed very poorly, however. Collins & Aikman filed for bankruptcy during 2005 and when Heartland sold Metaldyne to Asahi Tec Corp. during 2006, Heartland lost most of the $340 million of equity it had invested in the business.[13]

Collins & Aikman Corp.

During August 2003, Stockman became CEO of Collins & Aikman Corporation, a Detroit-based manufacturer of automotive interior components. He was ousted from that job days before Collins & Aikman filed for bankruptcy under Chapter 11 on May 17, 2005.

Criminal and civil charges

On March 26, 2007, federal prosecutors in Manhattan indicted Stockman in “a scheme… to defraud [Collins & Aikman]’s investors, banks and creditors by manipulating C&A’s reported revenues and earnings.” The United States Securities and Exchange Commission also brought civil charges against Stockman related to actions that he performed while CEO of Collins & Aikman.[14] Stockman suffered a personal financial loss, over $13 million, along with losses suffered by as many as 15,000 Collins & Aikman employees worldwide.

Stockman said in a statement posted on his law firm’s website that the company’s end was the consequence of an industry decline, not due to fraud.[15] On January 9, 2009, the US Attorney’s Office announced that it did not intend to prosecute Stockman for this case.[16]

Web site

In March 2014 Stockman launched a web based daily periodical, David Stockman’s Contra Corner featuring both his own articles and those from leading contrarian thinkers on geopolitics, economics, and finance.

Quotes

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“[Social Security] has to be means-tested. And Medicare needs to be means-tested […] Let the Bush tax cuts expire. Let the capital gains go back to the same rate as ordinary income.”[20]

“The Republican Party has totally abdicated its job in our democracy, which is to act as the guardian of fiscal discipline and responsibility. They’re on an anti-tax jihad — one that benefits the prosperous classes.”[21]

“Ninety-two percent of the wealth is owned by five percent of the people.” (Bloomberg TV 2013)

“[T]he Republican Party was hijacked by modern imperialists during the Reagan era. As a consequence, the conservative party cannot perform its natural function as watchdog of the public purse because it is constantly seeking legislative action to provision a vast war machine of invasion and occupation.” [23]